Explaining Collateral
by screeching-carmina
Summary: Previously titled Explanation Haloween decoration. So, remember Sue? How did they explain that one... and other stuff like that? How do the vanilla mortals deal with the collateral damage?
1. Explanation Haloween Decoration

Dresden files-verse

Had this idea a while ago, found it on my old USB. Hey kids, did you know that before there were 1 GB USBs there were the 100someting KB-ones? And we called them _cool_.

Book 7, Dead Beat. Remember how Sue the Dino-zombie crushed an army humvee and literally scared those two GIs stiff? How _did_ they explain that to their CO?

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><p>Col. Jones promised himself a beer when this was over. Chicago was one hell of a funky town, literally. Usually, they could all just pretend there was a parade balloon being blown along by the wind, or a prank involving a parade float like the cops used to do back at home. As the person with the most experience in the so called ''logical bullshit'' reports, his superiors immediately decided this was a job for him. But there was a video, and once the two soldiers saw it, they had trouble lying to themselves about what they saw. Not that Ettison was even trying, the idiot.<p>

"There was a dinosaur. With some guys riding it." Ettison was staring straight ahead, at parade rest. He didn't even blink when Mason screamed at him again.

"I heard shit in my time, you little shiteating worm, but this has to be the shittiest piece of bullshit I ever heard! -…!" Etc, etc. He really liked the word 'shit' when he raved. Must be a DI thing. "…-really think I'll buy that fucking shit?"

"It's on the tape, sir." Ettison said in a flat tone. He was a short young man with pale coloring, but he stood taller than Rivera who stammered something just then, staring at the floor, pale and sweating - Rivera wasn't an idiot. Of course, that brought just another round of screaming. Ettison was stating the obvious for the sixth time in a row, but Lt. Mason was still in denial about the tape. And the big damn footprints, too.

As it was, there was footage from the cameras inside, one displaying the legs and the other the dinosaur in question approaching, with two people on top of it. The people were fuzzy and the static bad, but he was pretty sure one of them had a staff in his hand. And they found the skeleton of a T-rex near the crater caused by the unknown thing they'll be calling a freak storm and college kids playing pranks, possibly with explosives.

Ettison and Rivera, along with two others that were smart enough to claim they saw nothing, were here to explain the tapes and the very expensive wrecked humvees. And the corpses of the 'rioters' they had to shoot turning to a handful of bones and goo come morning.

He wasn't panicking. He was 52 year-old New Orleans native, so hell yeah, he knew there were things in the dark. And five years in PR meant he'd dealt with freaky before.

He knew how to sort out over-zealous XOs, too, so he kept herself still until he was sure the hysterical Lieutenant pretty much forgot he was there. Then, when he stopped for breath, Jones cleared his throat. The man nearly choked on his own spittle as he tried to gasp and resume screaming at the same time.

"Thank you, you may go," he said in a calm, precise voice. "I will take care of this. Thank you," he added sharply, when it seemed the red-faced man would object. He was careful to keep his voice drawl-free, so he sounded educated. A coolly calm and _smart_ CO was always more feared than a yelling one.

As soon as the door slammed, he sat down behind the desk and leaned back in the chair.

"Ettison. Report," he said.

Ettison repeated the story for the seventh time that night, this time actually finishing. He didn't bother with Rivera. The man looked at the end of his rope.

"Alright. So he told you to get out of the way?"

"Yessir." Ettison was about done in, too. The shock was probably catching up.

"And both were in gray cloaks of some sort and armed with staves?"

"Yessir." He breathed a sigh.

"Did their mount look translucent in any way?"

"No, sir."

"Gray? And with black markings?" The videos weren't color, damn it.

"Gray and black. Sir." And now the kid was looking at him as if _he'd_ said something crazy.

"Good, good. I'll be expecting you in the morning to get your statements about a man driving around a Halloween decoration of a Tyrannosaurus and that's that."

Rivera looked like he was going to puke.

"Sir? We was hallucinating, right?" He sounded desperate.

He sighed.

"I don't know, Rivera, do you think Jurassic Park was a documentary?" He said it sarcastically and let the man draw his own conclusions.

Rivera looked relieved. Thank God the Nile was more than just a river.

"So you should probably get yourself checked out. Dismissed."

Ettison stayed behind. Damn, boy, you don't want to do this. Come on. Take a swim in the Nile.

"Sir." He was swaying. Shock, soon to become shellshock, the kind the pussies at Politically Correct called PTSD nowadays.

"Sir. I know we saw something."

He sighed.

"Yea. But people see something all the time. And they call it vivid imagination or too much stress, depending on their age."

Ettison shuddered and deflated from his stiff posture, eyes on his boots. He looked young and lost and a little like a drowned rat.

"Sir. I don't know what to think. Was it a government experiment of some sort?"

He laughed. Oh, thank you, X-files. Everything was a conspiracy involving a secret lab and alien technology these days. Made his job easier.

"No. Magic, I'm guessing zombies. Remember all those corpses we had to clean up? Dino was probably a magical construct of some sort, made by those two yahoos ridin' it."

And really, weren't horses good enough? Elephants, camels, hell, three-tailed-tigers – something that looked like a _still existing animal_. But nooo. Dinosaurs are cooler. And a nightmare to explain away. He'll be accidentally losing those tapes after deleting and over-recording them very thoroughly later. That left zombies…Humm. Hallucinations? Nah, they over-used that, in his opinion. Rioters in masks? Better. And they took their wounded with the bullets in them, too. And the rain washed the blood away.

Meanwhile the boy went a shade paler.

"Oh." He swallowed. He was shocked, scared and tired, but he wouldn't go thinking himself crazy, at least.

"If you're gonna hurl, the trash can 's right there." He pointed. The boy shook his head mutely. Tough kid. He might try to forget it, or he may go out to search the truth, either way, it took guts to tell the truth. Now all he needed was the brains to lie and he'll be a fine officer one day.

"So you'll come by to sign the statements tomorrow?"

"Yes Sir."

"Right. Get outta here."

He watched as Ettison dragged himself out the door, feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic. The National Guard shouldn't deal with shit like this. Let 'em call whoever dealt with terrorists next time. Things they could pass off for mutated animals he could deal with, but zombies and dinosaurs were where he drew the line.

Heh. At least he can now tell his grandkids what color a T-rex really is with a straight face. Purple, right.

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><p>Disclaimer:<p>

It's fan-fiction, hence the name of the site. I'm not Jim Butcher. Clue? No? Okay. I don't own the Dresden Files Series, making no money, the story is fictional and any resemblance to the actual persons is strictly coincidental, don't try this at home, etc.

Rating is M since in these days no-one younger than 21 listens to rap and the evening news and therefore they may get traumatized by the f-word, (known among the vulgary honest people as 'fuck.' Germanic origin, rhymes with 'duck'). Honestly, people. You say it, you think it, you make the nine-month-parasites with it, but god forbid we write it down? Come on.

I'm not making any changes, so feel free to comment. Or flame, I'll just make vodoo dolls so the trolls get crabs _and_ pimples.

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><p>|post scriptum|: Aaand here's the proof everyone goes back on their word once in a while. I switched `` for " and added a few missing dots. Fixed a sentence in I didn't like, 'cos I'm the author and I can. Renamed it, since I got some other stuff like this to post, too. Toodles.<p> 


	2. Smoking Punks With Stink Bombs

This was a good job. Melanie was sure of it.

Not everyone liked working for an insurance company, but she did. She enjoyed figuring out what happened, checking if the insurance covered the accident, or if it even was an accident. The researching and the investigating that went into the cases secretly made her feel like a real detective.

That was mostly because they didn't do healthcare, so she didn't have to feel guilty when she told them that their insurance didn't cover stuff. It gave her a warm, satisfied feeling whenever she told some fat cat their yes, their Jaguar was insured, but not for their (spoiled, bratty and probably drunk) teenager wrecking it.

Of course, certain kind of trouble came with the job. From clients dying before they could pay up, to the damage they didn't know how to write up - like these photos on the screen in front of her.

Wall-Marts. Dang.

She really wished the woman on the other side of the line would stop droning about how they should collect insurance from this… incident.

"…_we paid good money for that insurance, goddammit!"_ She touched the golden cross Pat gave her for last Christmas. It was sinful to take God's name in vain.

``As I already said, Ms, Dublin-"

"Devin, _ma'am_," the woman on the other end snapped. Melanie plowed on.

"There is no indication that this was caused by anything else other than vandalism, and in your policy it clearly states that you are obliged to provide some sort of proof, like video recordings, that your store was indeed vandalized." She shifted in her office chair. They should invest in bigger chairs; this one was too narrow to sit comfortably in.

"_Lady, you come survey it or whatever and then tell me it wasn't_!"

This was undoubtedly a black woman speaking. Not that she had anything against the blacks, some of her best friends were black, but did they really have to talk like that? It was disrespectful how she enunciatedthe first word. Enunciate. Word of the day, from her calendar - _to articulate, pronounce, to make sounds clearly._

Too bad there were so little people like Mr. Marcone. Other people at the office said he was a gangster, but she thought they must have been listening to rumors, because he was a real gentleman, even sent her flowers once, never filed complaints or anything when she had to tell him something wasn't covered in the insurance. Funny how many cars got stolen from his company – and those thieves would burn in Hell for ever, because it was just evil to steal a car and then blow it up, especially from such a nice man.

"…_I don't see what else it could've been. There was this stinky goop all over the place! Took us…"_

Oh, look, it was five already. Thank the Lord, now she can have Constance deal with this.

"I'm sorry, but my shift is ending, I'll connect you to another operator, goodbye and thank-you-for-trusting-Astor-Insurances." She buzzed Constance.

"Yeah, Mel?"

"I'm going home, I'm sending my last case over to you, she's on line three."

"Aww, come on Mel, I was hoping for clocking off early, it's our fifth anniversary-``

"It will be a good learning experience." And living in sin didn't need an anniversary.

She grabbed her bag and went home.

Thus she missed Constance (Connie to her friends) saying to the door:

"Thanks a lot, you fat cow. Lazy bitch."

Luke, currently finishing up on his paperwork at the other side, popped his bald head up over the edge of the cubicle and said:

"You mean Fat _Holy_ Cow. _Moo_." It was lame, but she grinned anyway.

"Moo and amen."

He chuckled before he ducked back to paperwork. Why couldn't he be the boss? He was nice, plus he knew this job in and out.

She took the call and first spent a few minutes pacifying the enraged woman on the other end. Her job sucked.

Soon as she had enough for her last year at MIT she'll be out of here like a shot. Just two grand to go…

"Alright, ma'am, hold on, I'll have to confer with someone smarter than me on this one."

"Sure, I got nothing else to do." Ms. Devin sounded relieved, probably because she wasn't talking to the Holy Cow of the Large Floral Prints Church.

"Hey,Luke? I got fire damage, breakage and goo, plus one missing chainsaw. Sighting of a tall guy in a coat with a stick, busted cameras. Is that vandalism or robbery?"

Luke leaned over the edge of the divide again, eyebrows raised. She quickly relayed the details.

"They didn't hire anyone named Dresden, right? 'Cause if they did you'll have to tell her we're upping the insurance."

She didn't know the name.

"He's on the danger list?"

There was an actual list of people and places that meant trouble. On it were, oddly enough, an entire department of the CPD, some lady with a weird name that was probably a Madam, a couple of clubs she never came near, some P.I. that was probably a hitter for Gentleman Johnny… beside the usual rich and reckless like the Raith family.

"Uh-uh. For the last couple of years at least. Since the thing in the SI building, you know, with the wild dogs attacking and a bunch of holes in the walls?"

She asked.

"She says no."

There were clicks from the other side, probably Luke checking policy and the reports.

"Okay, so you just put in vandalism and faulty wiring. But tell her damaged items aren't covered."

The woman hemmed and hawed, but agreed in the end, probably knowing she couldn't win.

Later, Luke walked her to the car, as usual. Every evening he insisted that he walked her to her car, saying it was a dangerous town for a little-bitty lady like her. They usually spent the way to the lot making up wild stories about what happened to cause the damage.

"Hey, what do you think really happened?"

He shrugged.

"Probably just some kids with water balloons full of some funky stink-bomb stuff. That stuff's usually flammable, and a lot of kids smoke these days. Panicked when it started burning and lit out."

She lifted an eyebrow at him. That was oddly sane explanation out of him. Usually he'd say something about Martians shop-lifting and parking badly.

"Really?" He gave her a long look. Then he grinned.

"Nah. Probably closet monsters that melt in the morning."

She laughed. They spent the rest of the way to the car discussing favorite monster movies.

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><p>Disclaimer: See the previous chapter. You twit.<p> 


End file.
